Canyons School District names teachers of the year

May 17, 2018 02:09PM
● By Jana Klopsch

Canyons School District’s top three teacher of the year finalists — Alta View’s Jamie Richardson, Corner Canyon’s Amber Rogers and Midvale Middle’s Lena Wood — were all smiles after receiving their awards in April. (Julie Slama/City Journals)

By Julie Slama | julie@mycityjournals.com

Corner
Canyon history and political science teacher Amber Rogers remembers that after
a student was transferred into her class, she learned other teachers had grown
frustrated with him.

“I made a snap judgment
wondering why he got straight F’s and what his story was,” she said. “The first
day he was respectful, so I wasn’t sure what was going on.”

Afterward, he told her no
other teacher allowed students to have a discussion as she did with a dialogue
about the Great Depression and that engagement got him back on track, she said.

“I’ve
learned it’s the time when teachers aren’t talking when kids are learning
more,” Rogers said.

Engaging students and
encouraging them to think and have dialogues was part of the reason Rogers was selected
as Teacher of the Year from 46 teachers representing each school in the Canyons
School District.

Rogers, as well as first
runner-up Lena Wood, from Midvale Middle School, and second runner-up Jamie
Richardson, from Alta View Elementary, also will be honored at a Real Salt Lake
game June 2. In addition to a crystal award and a gift basket, Rogers received
$1,000 from the Canyons Education Foundation, Wood received $750 and
Richardson, $500.

Rogers
gives high praise to her mentor, former AP history teacher Kathy Williams at
her Mesa, Arizona high school.

“She was not only appreciated
at my school, but she was highly regarded throughout the country for teaching
other teachers how to teach AP history,” Rogers said. “I would forget to take
notes, but instead, sit there and listen to her tell stories about individuals
in history. I told her I wanted to be a history teacher; I try to emulate her.”

Rogers said she reconnected
with her teacher 10 years after she took her class to let her know she became a
teacher as she vowed. After receiving the Teacher of the Year award, she sent her
mentor a message.

“It’s
the highest form of flattery,” she said.

However,
the 10-year veteran has learned a few valuable skills of her own.

“If you give students high
expectations and the tools to do them, they will succeed — even with tough
tests,” said Rogers, who chairs the social studies department and is the
National Honor Society adviser. “I love giving students opportunities. We went
back to the president’s inauguration and whether they agreed politically or not
— it’s an experience being in that kind of atmosphere, they’ll never have
again. And while we were there, we got caught up in the women’s march as we
tried to get to a museum — again, another experience where they can say, ‘I was
there.’”

Even in her own classroom,
she has experiences like the World War I simulation where students represent
countries and try to come to terms with the Treaty of Versailles.

“They try to figure out what
they want, the cost, the military, the geography of Europe and how to develop
strategies with others to get what they want,” she said.

She has mock congresses where
students create their own legislature, and a decades projects where students
not only learn about the historical events for that time period, but also share
with one another the culture.

That belief in students
working hard and engaging one another led to a round of applause by students
and teachers coming into her classroom shortly after the announcement was made
at her school that she was selected as Teacher of the Year.

“It was really sweet and I
was a little embarrassed by the attention,” she said. “It took a moment, but
then I got back on track with my students’ AP test that day.”

Lena Wood

Wood also is known to be able
to relate to her students. In sixth grade, her dad was sent to prison and she
realized it’s the choices students make that can send them to success or into
not good circumstances.

“I didn’t tell my friends and
kept it quiet,” she said. “I always felt like I didn’t fit in because of it. I
wasn’t good at math and struggled. It wasn’t until I discovered music that I
flourished.”

After listening to the
drummer for Yanni and thinking percussion was “so cool,” Wood used her piano
background to learn percussion in junior high and became involved in marching
band and drumline in high school. She graduated from Weber State University
with a music education degree on scholarship.

“At the beginning of the
year, I told my students my story. Kids need to hear that we all aren’t super
successful from the start; that we struggle. Sometimes there is a person they
can relate to or something at school that gets them going. It’s OK if it’s
music, dance, theater or gym. The arts are important in school and they can
keep us going,” she said.

Wood, who followed her
mother’s footsteps into teaching, has taught for 11 years, but said it wasn’t
until she came to Midvale Middle School that she felt comfortable.

“I fell in love with the
diversity here,” she said. “It’s so different. I felt accepted. Now I feel
super honored to be honored. It gives me more confidence in my teaching and
tells me that (I’m) doing OK. It gives my students that encouraging message."

Jamie Richardson

When Alta View’s fourth-grade
teacher Jamie Richardson learned at an assembly that she was the school’s
choice for Teacher of the Year, she was “completely surprised.” Her students
and former students as well as parents and colleagues nominated her.

“I am humbled and grateful,”
she said. “I’m not much for the limelight, but this has been a wonderful
experience. It’s an amazing feeling to be recognized.”

One reason Richardson was
nominated for the award is for what she calls “fun and silly” ways to engage
students in learning.

“When they seem tired, I’ll
have them give me some jumping jacks or have a ‘mingle mingle’ time and get
them moving,” she said, adding that it helps them refocus. “I love working with
kids and watching those ‘a-ha’ moments when they get it after helping them
learn.”

Richardson said she debated
teaching as a career, after watching her sister put the effort into it when she
became a first-grade teacher in Jordan School District, but continued to want
to teach. Her grandfather also taught woodshop at Olympus High.

“I
knew I’d have to dedicate myself to it if I chose to teach. Teaching is a life,
not a job,” she said.

Richardson says she is
putting the money toward IXL for math programming that can provide students
problems and instant feedback.

“I wouldn’t have gotten the
award without the students, so it makes sense to give it back to them,” she
said.